


Get (Un)Lucky

by ForensicSpider98



Series: Across the Multiverse with You [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Basically I tease you for six chapters, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Complementary TraumaTM, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gay Keith (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, Kinda, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lonely Keith (Voltron), M/M, Oblivious Keith (Voltron), Oblivious Lance (Voltron), Romantic Comedy, but not a lot, but you'll like it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-25 05:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30084315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForensicSpider98/pseuds/ForensicSpider98
Summary: Every person shares luck with their soulmate until they meet, at which point that luck becomes neutral. Sometimes, one of the soulmates gets a lot more luck than the other. Enter Keith, who's had terrible luck every single day of his life. Like almost getting run over by his mother, never having any friends, failing out of high school, can't hold down a job bad luck. As much as it sucks, he's happy knowing that his soulmate is out there living large, thriving wherever he is.Or at least, he was, until his luck starts to change because his soulmate is an absolute DUMBASS who, instead of looking for him, has chosen to try and invoke bad luck in the hopes of giving Keith a little bit more. Touched by the selfless idiocy, Keith starts keeping a more desperate eye out for his soulmate...Alternative summary: Keith and Lance come so close to meeting so many times it'll make you scream with frustration but you won't mind because I finally wrote something funny and lighthearted instead of crushingly depressing.
Relationships: Adam & Keith & Shiro (Voltron), Adam/Curtis/Shiro (Voltron), Hunk & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith & Keith's Father & Krolia (Voltron), Keith & Keith's Wolf (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Across the Multiverse with You [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2213562
Comments: 15
Kudos: 67





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginning of a series! If you have a favorite soulmates au, or one you want me to try, please drop a comment below!
> 
> Shout out to Maryliz, who came up with the phrase ✨complementary spice✨ to describe Keith and Lance's parallel angsts!

Krolia holds her crying son close, his little legs wrapped around her waist, arms twined around her neck as he sobs into her shoulder. She only just got home, but it is way past his bedtime. Johnathan rubs the boy's back, hot and damp from hysterics.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. See? The bleeding’s all better, and you’ll get a new tooth soon. It was already starting to wiggle.” Krolia carries her son into his space-themed room, settles him back in his star-scattered day bed, tucks him in, pulls the blankets up to his armpits. Johnathan opens the window to let in the cool night air.

Six-year-old Keith sniffles. He’d just wanted to go potty. Then, he’d tripped on the bath mat and knocked his tooth out on the edge of the tub. 

“Why does all this bad stuff happen?!” Little as he is, Keith is smart enough to recognize a pattern when it dumps him headfirst into a bathtub. And out of trees. And the car. And all over the place for no apparent reason.

“Don’t worry, kiddo.” Johnathan ruffles his boy’s wild black hair. “Everything’ll get better. You’ll see.”

Krolia sighs, takes her boy's hand. She’d returned home from the precinct just in time to help her husband to clean up the mess. She hands her badge to her son, brushes tears from his still-flushed cheeks. “You’ve got bad luck, baby. But that’s okay. I’ll keep you safe. It’s my job, remember?”

Keith sniffles, nods, rubs his eyes. “But why’s my luck bad?”

“Because.” Johnathan places a steadying hand on his wife's back. “Somewhere out there is a very special someone who’s got the rest of it. And one day, when you’re both ready, you’ll get to meet them.”

Keith frowns at his mother’s badge, little bottom lip stuck out as he thinks really hard. “Will he share?”

Johnathan blinks at his son for a moment, shakes away those thoughts for later. “Of course he will. It’s his job to share. But until he’s ready, Eomma and I will keep you super safe, okay?”

“Pinky promise? Azh-y, pinky promise?” Keith holds up his little pinky.

“Pinky promise, kiddo.” Johnathan locks pinkies with Keith, that pale, tiny digit almost disappearing in his.

“Goodnight, sweetheart.” Krolia kisses his son’s cheek, gently reclaims her badge. “Say goodnight to  Azhé'é.”

“Night-night, Azh-y.”

Keith curls up around his grape-scented hippo plushy. Johnathan tucks him in, plants a kiss in his jet black hair.

“Goodnight, Kiddo. We love you.”

“Hm. Love you too.” The little boy’s thick, dark lashes sink down onto his cheeks.

Out in the hallway, his parents are having one of their ‘team meetings’. Krolia sighs, shoulders hunching where she leans against the wall, badge still in her hand.

“So…” Johnathan scratches his stubbly cheek. “Our kid’s gay.”

“Seriously, Johnathan? That’s what you have to say?” Krolia hisses, too worried about her son to appreciate her husband’s off-beat sense of humor.

Johnathan sighs. He has no idea what to say. He just wants his baby to be okay.

Not having an answer for his wife, Johnathan kisses her temple, draws her into an embrace.

"We'll be okay, honey. Luck isn't all it's cracked up to be. You'll see."

Across town, in another bed, another little boy is fast asleep, brown lashes fluttering, fingers with blue-painted nails curled into a stuffed shark toy. There’s a healthy blush beneath the freckles dotting his tiny cheeks like stars.

His mamá gently strokes his soft brown hair, grateful that her littlest baby is going to have a happy childhood. The other side of that coin can come later, she decides. Maybe once he grows out of his shark pajamas and stops squealing about cooties.


	2. Two: A Hit and a Miss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lance is sad and Keith gets hit by a car. In a comedic way?

*Thirteen Years Later*

Lance checks the name on his coffee cup, blue nail polish gleaming fresh and perfect. The name is spelled correctly. Again. And he gave them the name “Atreyu” because who the hell could spell that? He sighs and thanks the barista, who gives him a sad smile. 

“I’m sorry, Lance,” Allura says. “Try again tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah,” Lance sighs again. “Thanks, Allura.”

“Things will even out sooner or later. Don’t you worry. Also, NeverEnding Story? Really?”

“Yeah, it was all I could think of... Thanks.” Lance manages a smile for the silver-haired barista. “I hope you’re right. We still on for Yoga, Thursday?”

“Yes, but I’ll have to meet you at the botanical gardens directly. Romelle and I are having brunch with my parents and uncle.”

“Sounds great! Tell them all I said hi.” Lance leans over the counter to kiss her cheek, hurries off to class.

Outside, the sun is shining and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. Of course there isn’t. He has plans to go skateboarding with Hunk and Pidge today. 

Lance takes his time walking to class. He knows he won’t be late. Never, not once in his entire life, has Lance McClain been late. To anything. Ever. No matter how much he tries. 

It’s such bullshit.

There’s a cute guy up ahead, studying the ground with careful concentration. Messy black hair, graceful features, and lithe build. Lance wants to say hi, but he spots a brightly colored piece of paper on the sidewalk. He bends down and picks it up. A winning lottery ticket. It’s the third one he’s found. 

He finds stuff a lot. Cash. Jewelry. Missing keys. Homework. Wallets. Motivation. A will to live. Lance pockets the winning ticket. Might as well cash it in. He already knows it won’t be claimed by anyone. His college fund will get him through a Master’s if he feels like it. He’s also bought a car. He’s set money aside for house. One he’ll pick out with his soulmate. He’s also set a bit aside so he can repair any damage caused by his amazing luck. Dios, he’s worried. He wants his soulmate  _ found _ . He wants them  _ safe _ .

“Lance!” Hunk runs up to him, puffing a little. The hefty guy’s super strong but not built for cardio.

“Hey, Hunk,” Lance mumbles, pushing his hand deeper into his pocket.

“What’s the matter buddy? Barista spell the name right again?”

“Yes!” Lance wails, encouraged by the immediate attention. “ _ And _ I found another lottery ticket this morning! Ugh, Hunk! What am I gonna do!”

“Set the pace so I get to class on time?” Hunk asks, not at all surprised by his friend’s antics.

“Yeah, come on, man. Let’s get going.”

In class, Pidge pokes him in the side, long, needle-like finger making him jump. 

“How’d it go?” the small person whispers. “Any change?”

Lance shakes his head sadly and hands them the cup. They take one look at it and throw their hands up. Hunk leans over.

“And he found a winning lottery ticket this morning,” he whispers. Pidge growls in frustration.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” they practically yell, interrupting Professor Coran’s physics lecture.

“Pidge Gunderson,” the older man says, turning. “Is there something you want to share with us?”

“Only that my best friend is having a crisis!” Pidge hollers. Lance shrinks down in his seat as Coran sighs.

“Which is?”

“Lance’s luck is too good and it’s slowly killing him!” The class laughs and Coran looks unimpressed. 

“Hunk, Pidge, see me after class please.” They groan, slumping down in their seats. Lance gives them a small smile and a nod, promising he’ll stay back with them.

Class drags on incredibly slow. It’s also incredibly boring, and Lance knows he’ll pass the class whether he tries or not, so he allows his mind to wander.

He zones out, drawing robot lions on his graph paper. Pidge leans over and draws the old mocking spongebob meme with the caption: SeE mE aFtEr ClAsS. It doesn’t make him smile, so he tries his best to force one for their sake. It doesn’t work. They squeeze his hand, eyes big and comforting. He takes to drawing a doodle of Coran sharing a Tide Pod with an alien at Area 51 in the hopes that it might lift the trio’s spirits. All three of them love dead memes.

Another needle-like prod from Pidge breaks him from his reverie. He jumps, looking around to see that everyone else has cleared out and Professor Coran is coming over.

“Now, I understand that at your age, every problem is of the utmost, melodramatic importance, but you cannot continue to disrupt my class! Especially not by shouting profanities at the top of your lungs!”

“Hey! I can yell way louder than that!” Pidge protests.

“Professor, really,” Lance interjects, cutting in before Pidge can demonstrate their abilities. “They’re just worried about me, that’s all.”

“What?” Coran asked. “Are you telling me that your luck is actually that good?” Lance squirms in his seat and nods, trying not to tear up. His poor soulmate! Lance might be a bit of a melodramatic crybaby, but he’s compassionate, dammit! And the love of his life deserves better.

“How good?” the older, orange-haired man asks, voice softening slightly. Lance takes a deep breath.

“I’m paying for college with lottery tickets I find in parking lots. I found another one this morning. Baristas always spell my name right. I find cash on the ground at least once a week. I’ve never been late to anything even once in my life. McDonalds always gets my order right the first time and their ice cream machine is always working! I’ve never been sick! I’ve never failed a class, test, or even a homework assignment! I’ve never accidentally said something racist or homophobic! I’ve never stubbed my toe or tripped on the stairs! I’ve never been caught sneaking out and I’ve never had a hangover. Or even a hangnail!”

“Have you ever finished too soon?” Pidge asks under their breath. 

Lance doesn’t answer that, but the answer is ‘no’. Don’t judge him. He wanted practice. Lots of people do it. They do! Shut up! There are so many stigmas in the world and-

“Interesting. I’ve heard of cases where there is a major discrepancy in luck distribution, but I’ve never witnessed such a thing firsthand. I’m sure this must be distressing for you, son.” Coran places a gentle hand on his shoulder. Lance swallows hard, trying to banish the lump in his throat. He can hear the sympathy in the old professor’s voice and it cuts to his core.

“We’re trying to help him break his good luck streak,” Pidge explains, placing one hand on Lance’s arm and the other on his back. “We’ve been coming up with names that are hard to spell for baristas and we’ve tried tripping him in hallways and putting Nair in his shampoo bottle-”

“You fucking what?” Lance says, turning his head so fast Hunk almost hurls.

“You didn’t wash your hair this morning.” Hunk turns to Coran. “Seeeee?” he asks. Coran sighs.

“Well, it seems you lot need to go to more extremes if you want to turn Lance’s luck around. Maybe I can help.”

“What?” Lance asks, eye blowing wide. “You’d do that?”

“Of course, m’boy. But you should know, a person’s soulmate is always within reach. You could just keep an eye out for someone with terrible luck and-”

“No,” Lance says, not even hesitating. “I mean, I will, obviously, but I don’t know how long that will be, and in the meantime, my soulmate is out there hurting. If there’s even a chance I can turn my luck around, and more importantly,  _ theirs _ , I will.”

Of course Lance will keep an eye out. Because if his luck is this good, then somewhere out there, his soulmate must be having the worst luck in the world. And it’s killing him.

Keith glances at the name on his cup. K-I-E-T-H-E. What the fuck? How fucking hard is it to spell ‘Keith’? He sighs. And they’re out of his favorite bagel. It doesn’t matter what crappy, over-processed food he wants; they’re always out of it.

As he stalks off with the coffee he can already tell they put dairy in instead of almond milk (again), he spots a really cute guy with freckled cheekbones and brown skin. He knows this guy. He’s seen him around before. They cross paths here often. Well, almost.

God forbid if he has more than two friends.

As their paths approach, Keith attempts a wave and a smile, but the boy doesn’t see it. Instead, he stops just in front of and to the right of him to pick something up off the ground. A winning lottery ticket. He doesn’t even notice Keith walk by. Keith sighs. What a lucky son of a bitch.

He doesn’t see the street sign until he walks right into it.

“Ow! Fuck!” Keith rubs his forehead with one hand and his knee with the other, only for his one grounded foot to find the edge of the sidewalk. He falls back into a disgusting, wet parking space (the only puddle under the golden sun), scraping his hands on the nasty asphalt. There’s a screech of tires and an impact with his shoulder (fortunately not hard enough to do more than leave a nasty bruise). He cries out as someone gets out of their car.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” the woman asks. “I didn’t even see you fall, are you- Keith?”

“Hey, Eomma,” Keith mumbles, voice empty of expression, groaning as he picks himself up off the ground. He barely notices the stinging in his hands or the ache in his shoulder. “How’s it going?”

“Good. Going to work. You?” Krolia comes up and inspects her disaster of a son. 

“Having bad luck,” he says, plucking at the wet seat of his jeans. Krolia sighs, looking him over. Krolia’s a pretty cool mom. The loving kind, but also the ‘do no evil, take no shit’ kind. The ‘rock band tees and beer on the weekends’ kind. The ‘rats out her own squad for profiling’ kind. The ‘cusses you out in three languages’ kind, the ‘leaves a stable job as a police officer to kick ass as a PI’ kind. In other words, this woman with the concealed carry, back tattoo, and choppy hair is the Good Kind of Mom.

“Want a ride to Shiro’s?”

“No, thanks. I don’t want you to crash and die or anything,” Keith mumbles. Krolia frowns, running her fingers through his messy hair. She knows he’s joking, but worries about him anyway. “I’m alright, Eomma. Nothing broken this time.” 

Keith’s mother presses a fretful kiss to his brow. He winces, realizing a goose egg is already forming in the middle of his forehead. He sighs in frustration. He’s not miserable. Really, he’s not. But sometimes he gets discouraged. And sometimes he wonders if his luck will kill him before he finds his soulmate.

He bends down and picks up the now empty coffee cup. Krolia gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“Stay right here and don’t move. I’ll get you a new one, and you just try not to spontaneously combust or something, okay?” She smiles, a sparkle of humor in her normally distant eyes. She rarely expresses emotion for anyone aside from Keith, his dad, and maybe occasionally Uncle Kolivan. But most often for him. It makes him feel special. Loved. Safe.

“No promises,” he says with a smirk.

An hour later, having hit every crosswalk stop on the way, he arrives at the little bookshop ten minutes late, coffee buzzing in his veins. It’s a nice place to be, warmly lit, handicap accessible, with a cute little cafe to the right of the door.

“Ah. Right when I was expecting you,” Shiro says, warm smile lighting up his gray eyes. He’s stocking shelves before the store opens in an hour.

“Hey, Shiro. Eomma almost killed me with her car this morning and I hit every stoplight,” Keith deadpans.

“How long did you give yourself this time?”

“An hour and a half,” he grumbles. And he was still 10 minutes late, just like always. Keith releases a puff of air, blowing his hair out of his eyes. It falls predictably right back into place.

“Okay. It’s 7:10 now, so you’ve been up since 5 and you closed last night at 11. Let’s stop this, okay? I’ll just start expecting you 10 minutes late,” Shiro says, a good-natured laugh in his voice.

“Great,” Keith growls. “Now I can be twenty minutes late.” Shiro just chuckles. “Honestly, I’m amazed you haven’t fired me.”

“Curtis had decent enough luck, like me, but Adam was like you,” Shiro says, pushing the cart along. Keith comes over to help. “Adam and I actually saw each other around a few times. We just didn’t realize we were soulmates. We never really met. We were just in a few of the same large classes. You know, the ones that have like two-hundred people?”

“Then how’d you two connect?”

“He ran into me. Literally. Tripped, did this weird sort of pirouette, crashed into me, and our eyes met as we tumbled to the floor. First time anyone had ever run into me, ever. He just sighed from the floor, smirked up at me, and said, ‘Hey hot stuff, come here often?’” 

Keith chuckles. “What did you say?” he asks.

“I wasn’t quite so smooth. I believe I said something along the lines of, ‘Oh my fucking God.’ Then I just sat with him on the floor and we talked for like an hour. I totally missed a class.”

“That sounds nice,” Keith whispers.

“Know what the best part is?” Shiro asks conspiratorially.

“What?”

“After we finally connected, he was actually  _ graceful _ . It’s unbelievable.” Keith laughs. “It’s like he became immune to gravity. He loves to dance,” Shiro whispers, a fond smile gracing his lips. “Still does, even now. Curtis hates it, though.”

Keith’s smile fades as a book falls from his hands and hits his foot. He just sighs. He has a highly developed pain tolerance.

“Shiro?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Do I… Do you think I have a soulmate? What if I’m just unlucky because I’m meant to be alone?”

“That’s not true and you know it. If there was no one for you, you’d already have perfectly neutral luck. In a way, you  _ are _ lucky. You’ll have an easier time finding your soulmate than most.” Keith stares down at the book in his hands. Shiro puts a hand -the mechanical one- on his shoulder, makes him turn to face him. "Listen. That little empty feeling, that space where something should be but isn't? That's them, looking for you, waiting for _you_. It happens every day, but that's still such a beautiful thing... Don't give up on that."

Keith heaves in a big breath, nods.

“Come on, buddy. I know it’s bad. But someday you’ll find him and things will get better.”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Keith mumbles. The tiniest, softest smile crosses his lips. “Somewhere out there, he’s having a really nice go of it, and I’m okay with that. He’s happy, and I’m happy knowing that.”

He means it. As long as his soulmate is out there and happy, he can handle this. As long as it takes. And as long as he doesn’t die before they finally meet.


	3. When A Black Cat Crosses Your Path... You're Delighted?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, a furry friend goes a long way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that I am not in any way questioning the validity of aro/ace people within soulmate universes. Later on in the fic, Pidge will get to talk about their experiences, and the peace of mind they have that Hunk and Lance do not :)

“So…” Hunk says, clearly not sure how to approach his favorite friend-lump. Lance is curled up like a fetus under his blanket pile, moping. He’d felt so hopeful yesterday, but now he’s back to making himself miserable. And into a soft, fuzzy human burrito. Or maybe a potsticker.

Sometimes he just wants to wallow, _okay?_

They’re at their tiny rented townhouse, a simple affair with a master bedroom, two spare bedrooms, and a bathroom upstairs and a living room, bathroom, and kitchen downstairs. It’s perfect for a trio of college students. They had a pool noodle guantlet for the master bedroom, and Pidge won, which was fine by the boys.  Lance's own room is pretty small, with just a full-size bed and dresser, and a bookshelf in one corner. He doesn't have a desk. Everything is blue, and looks nice with the reddish-brown of his furniture. It may or may not have faerie lights strung up along all the places where the walls meet each other and the ceiling, which is covered in glow-in-the-dark stars. There's also a lot of laundry on the floor.

“What do you wanna do today?” Hunk asks, spinning lazily in Lance’s desk chair.

“If you keep spinning like that, you’re gonna throw up,” Lance mumbles, pulling out his phone. He begins scrolling through Google. “Hey, would you be cool if I got a cat?”

“What?” Hunk gives him a confused look. “I thought you were a dog person.”

“I like both. I want to get a black cat.” There’s a moment of silence.

“Oh. Hell. No.”

“Oh, come on! Hu-”

“Nope. No, no. No. You’re not gonna put your bad mojo on me, buddy. Absolutely not. You wanna change your luck, fine, but my luck is a little on the shitty side, and-”

“Hunk, please? I’ll find you a four-leafed clover on the way to the shelter. I _promise_.” 

Now, Lance is the youngest of five siblings. As such, he has finely tuned puppy eyes, and knows _exactly_ how to use them. Hunk's always been defenseless.

Hunk sighs. “Okaaaaay. Let’s go get your stupid cat-”

“How  _ dare-  _ Ugh! Regris will not be stupid, Hunk! Regris will be an absolute  _ angel _ of a cat!”

“Not if you name it  _ Regris _ ,” Pidge mumbles, not looking up from their laptop. Lance had kind of forgotten they were there, to be honest, holed up in a corner by the outlet with their laptop. “I think it’s safe to say that, as the one person here who doesn’t have a soulmate at all, I’m the most qualified to handle your bullshit.”

See, that makes Lance wince. Sometimes, he feels bad for Pidge. He can’t understand how they can be so happy knowing they’ll never have anyone to share their life with, but… they are. Pidge is perfectly content to share their life with no one but themselves, their friends, and their work. Lance supposes he’s happy for them. He’s happy his friend is happy.

Dios, he wants his soulmate, though. He feels so... _incomplete._

“Watcha talking about, Pidge?” Hunk asks, groaning as he takes an overzealous rotation.

“Don’t barf on the carpet. I’m researching bad luck. We’re gonna give Lance as much bad luck as we can. Lance?”

“Yes, Your Esteemed Highness of all Beneath the Sun?” 

Pidge grins at him. It’s become Lance’s habit, since Pidge came out, to come up with the most absurd replacements for his previous “ma’am” and “milady.” It’s their thing.

“Go get your cat. Also, buy a few salt shakers while you’re out.”

“I love you, Pidge,” Lance says, kissing his friend on the cheek as he pulls on his shoes. “Come on, Hunk. Let’s go get my new kitty cat.”

Keith is close with his parents. His luck isolates him from society, and as a result, he’s a little behind on leaving the nest. He’s a danger to himself, and not many people want to risk being around him for very long. That anxious part of him wonders if his parents resent him, wish he and his bad luck were gone.

Regardless of that closeness or inner turmoil, sometimes having his parents around to constantly badger him gets annoying.

“Mom, I do not need a dog.”

“Yes, you do!” calls Johnathan from his radio in the other room. The half-Navajo man snickers at his son's exaggerated sigh.

“ _ Azh-y _ ,” Keith groans. He hates when they gang up on him. Mainly because it’s always something he doesn’t want to do and they’re usually right.

“Sweetheart, you have  _ one _ friend.  _ One _ . A man who’s five years older than you-”

“Adam is my friend too! Curtis is- a friend by association! And? What’s that got to do with anything? I’m a grown-ass man, in case you forgot, and I don’t want-”

“Keith!” John hollers, turning one of the dials on his system. “We’ve got a plane coming in, in just a few minutes. Kindly argue with your mother more quietly!” Keith rolls his eyes. The quirks of small, butt-fuck nowhere, town life. The nearby university has more people than the actual town does.

“Sweetheart, we’re worried about you. We hate seeing you spend so much time alone.” Krolia pushes some hair out of his eyes. "Listen, why don’t we just… see if anybody catches your eye, hm?” 

“...Okay, Eomma. We can go look.” Keith sighs, follows his mother out to their beat up car. His parents worry about his isolation a lot more than he does. He just needs his silence. People are loud and annoying. And his luck makes them uncomfortable. Even people who have already found their soulmates worry that Keith’s bad luck will rub off on them. He tries not to take it personally.

_ I bet he has lots of friends. Maybe they can be my friends, too? _ Or maybe his soulmate’s friends will hate him? He really hopes they won’t hate him. He really wishes he could find his soulmate already. Maybe, he thinks, maybe his soulmate will let him go back to school. Even just to get a diploma. He can argue that it’ll make things easier. He can find more work, help him provide.

Keith has no doubts that his very lucky soulmate has gotten much farther, been much more successful in life than Keith, high school dropout, lifelong flunkie. He hopes his soulmate won’t be too disappointed.

“We’re here. Let’s go meet everyone.” Krolia pulls into the small parking lot. Keith blows a breath out through his cheeks, exits the car, trudges toward his inevitable, pet-parent fate.

In the parking lot, two people are arguing. One is a tall, slender man with brown skin and hair. The other, a hefty man, also with brown skin, but with black hair. As he watches, a small black cat squirts out of the slender man’s arms, and right in front of him.

As the malachite-eyed cat darts right under his feet, Keith jumps back in surprise, catches his heel on a parking curb, and falls back on his ass for the second time this week, the scrapes on his hands reopening and bleeding even worse than before. A jolt, like electric ice shoots up from his wrist. It’s sprained.

“Keith!” Krolia gasps, immediately worried.

The slender man goes running after what must have been his cat. The other guy decides to actually apologize.

“Sorry, dude. My friend’s a bit of an idiot.” Hunk holds out his hand, but Keith reveals his palms. “Aw hell man, here.” The guy gets a hand around Keith’s upper arm and just  _ lifts _ him to his feet like he weighs nothing. Well. That's emasculating.

“HUNK DID YOU SEE THAT?! IT WORKED!!! Here, Regris, let’s go home!” 

Keith scowls, finding the idiot more than a little irritating. Hunk sighs.

“Lance, get in the car.”  _ Yes, please take that demon and get in the car. _ “I’m so sorry. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. Fine,” he lies. His wrist is throbbing, but it’s not even close to the worst injury he’s ever had.

“I think you should leave now,” Krolia says icily. “With your friend, please.”

“Yeah, come on Hunk,” chirps the idiot friend. “I need to take my bad luck charm home.” Hunk sighs and follows after the other man. Keith can’t help but notice briefly that the idiot has a nice accent. Then his mother is escorting him inside, protective as ever.

“Unbelievable! That idiot didn’t even apologize!”

“Eomma, please don’t- Ouch!” Keith yelps as Krolia bumps against his injured wrist. “My wrist is sprained.”

“Oh for- I’m actually going to kill them.”

“You hit me with your car yesterday,” Keith reminds her. “Let it go. I don’t want to have to talk to that idiot anyway.”

“Fine. Let me get your bandage from the car.” Ten minutes later, wrist wrapped snugly in a bandage, Keith is being escorted among rows of miserable-looking dogs. The noise is driving him up the wall. They're all jumping up at the cage door, barking, wagging their tails, each one looking hopeful. Pitbulls with scars, sad eyes, and wagging back ends; mutts with teats still dripping milk, puppies missing; scraggly terriers of one kind or another- it's depressing. Keith's enough of a sucker to know he'll walk out of here with one of them even if he doesn't like them that much.

With that in mind, it's still kind of a surprise when one of the dogs catches his eye. To be fair, it might just be because the dog is larger than most. A big, fluffy black beast of a thing pressed against the far corner of his cage at the end of the row, watching him intently, and, best of all,  _ not barking _ . Keith sits down in front of the kennel and the animal comes over, licking at his wrapped hand.

The volunteer clears her throat nervously. “So, I’ll be honest, we’re not entirely sure that’s a dog. We think he might be a wolf. He’s a hybrid at best, in my opinion.”

“Hey, buddy. What’s your name?”

“Wolf,” the volunteer says, audibly disapproving of his tentative choice.

“Hey, Wolf. How’s it going?” The wolf silently waves its plumed tail in a slow back-and-forth. “You seem nice and quiet.” 

That’s all Krolia needs to hear.

Thirty minutes later, after an obligatory few minutes out on a plastic lawn with the calm yet energetic wolf, Keith has a new pet. It takes him most of the drive home to realize.

“Eomma!”

“What? What is it?”

“Eomma, something  _ good _ happened! To  _ me! _ ”” Keith stares ahead, aghast. What does this mean?

“I don’t believe it,” Pidge mumbles, staring at the pile of Lance at the foot of the stairs leading to the townhouse porch. “That actually  _ worked _ . It  _ worked _ .”

Lance grins tearfully as he nurses his bruising knee. “I wonder what this means for my other half,” he says, stumbling to his feet. “Also, I have a very low pain tolerance and would like some frozen peas, please." Lance goes so far as to test his knee to see if it bears weight. "This fucking hurts. Do you think it’s broken?”

“Pfft, nah. But congratulations on your first bruise. Did you buy those salt shakers?” 

Lance nods, passing a set of shakers to Pidge. “Thank you, Supreme Galactic Overlord… What’s the shaker for?”

“Supposedly, it’s bad luck to tip over a salt shaker. So guess what you get to do!”

“Let’s do it!” Lance beams, enthusiastic as ever. Something bad happened to him. Which hopefully means something good happened to his unfortunate soulmate. “Come on, Regris! I wanna show you your new home!”

“Yeah, come on, Regris, so I can go put your junk in the house,” Hunk mumbles. Lance picks up his new treasure and leads the way up the stairs to their apartment. Hunk carries a pile of cat supplies in behind them.

Once inside, Lance settles Regris into his bedroom, where the cat will be confined for a few days. Then, dodging Rover the tortoise, he goes back to the kitchen to fill the salt shaker. He flicks it onto its side. Who knows? If a black cat crawling over his feet in the backseat of a car can help sour his luck, then why not a salt shaker?

That night, he’s not sure about one of the questions on his homework. He has to check hunk’s meticulous notes in order to figure out the end of the equation. He makes a mental note to start studying and paying attention in class.


End file.
